MLJ: Sombra Spotlight 9: La Sombra & Volador Jr. © vs Heavy Metal & Negro Casas [CMLL TAG]

2009-02-13 @ Arena México
La Sombra & Volador Jr. © vs Heavy Metal & Negro Casas [CMLL TAG]

I had mainly been gauging my Sombra viewing based on his singles matches. What I hadn't realized at the time was that he had a tag champion run with Volador. I decided to take a quick look what was available there and I'm going to look at three of these matches. Unsurprisingly, two have Negro Casas as he teams with his brothers. I am skipping the title change, which was an Averno/Mephisto match because there just isn't enough time in the world. This first one has Casas and Heavy Metal, who I like whenever I see him from this era. Volador and Sombra had their heads shaved and goofy matching strap masks.

I thought this was a blast. Everything from the rudos taking over to the comeback felt like a Steiner Brothers match in all the best ways. I've never seen Casas so brutally dominant and it was the presence of Heavy Metal that took it over the top. He was just a force in there, with clotheslines (corner and otherwise) that took guys' heads off, with a grisly sort of high-flying, with haphazard exploder suplexes and this insane top rope gorilla press:

And he seemed to wake a sleeping giant in Negro Casas, channeling his brother's intensity into a fine laser point. Let me just post a few more gifs of the brothers Casas mauling their opponents:

It meant that when the come back did happen (based on missed spots, including Metal missing a drop kick through the ropes that we barely see), it means all the more. The young high-flying tecnicos had gotten destroyed and now it was time for them to get revenge, primarily by leaping from high places down upon their opponents.

There was a little moment afterwards where Sombra was unable to hold the Northern Lights, but it was fine. Volador came over to help with the pin and it helped sell the damage.

The tercera was all action, but I sort of wish they revisited some of the Casas Brothers bruising from earlier in the match. That's where Metal hit his flip dive which was a very rough imitation of the one done earlier by Volador. There were a ton of dives in this thing, and all of the third fall selling you'd expect and some good near falls. I loved the way Negro Casas was hyping things up throughout:

Sombra would take out Heavy Metal with another dive, though (he'd get counted out), and Volador would reverse la Casita and hit one of his own, letting the tecnicos win the day. I really liked this. Maybe it could have used a bit more matwork to begin and another minute or two of absolute mauling, but it was about everything you'd want from mean veterans who could go vs plucky tecnicos who could fly.